Wednesday, March 04, 2015

The New York Times gives Iran equal time

A frelichen (happy) Purim to all of you - here in Jerusalem the holiday does not start until tomorrow night.

Imagine, if you would, that on December 26 or 27, 1941, the New York Times had given equal time to Adolph Hitler to respond to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speech before the a joint session of the United States Congress. What do you think would have happened?

Would Hitler have explained how Germany needed lebensraum because its then-current size was insufficient for its growing population?

Would he have explained how the 'real issue' was the Jewish 'leeches' who were sucking Germany's resources dry?

Would he have justified that month's Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as a 'necessary response' to American 'aggression'?

We'll never know, because in those days the Times had not yet heard the words 'politically correct.' But today is different, and the Times has - incredibly - given op-ed space to Iran's ambassador to the United Nations to respond to Prime Minister Netanyahu. No, this is not a Purim joke.

Despite extensive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency,
no evidence has ever been presented to contradict the clear commitment
by Iran’s leaders that they would under no circumstances engage in
manufacturing, stockpiling and using nuclear weapons. In 2013, for example, only Japan, which has many more nuclear facilities than Iran, was subject to greater agency scrutiny.

As one side of the talks that continue in Geneva, Iran can also bear
testimony to the campaign of misinformation by Mr. Netanyahu to mislead
the global public about the details of those nuclear negotiations. When
the parties were finalizing the interim agreement in 2013, Mr. Netanyahu claimed that it would involve Iran’s receiving $50 billion in sanctions relief; the actual amount was about $7 billion.
And as for his prediction that Iran would never abide by the terms of
the accord, Iran has dutifully stood by every commitment — as the
International Atomic Energy Agency has reported.

In our view, Mr. Netanyahu has consistently used these false alarms and
outlandish claims both to serve his domestic political maneuvering and
to create a smoke screen that relegates the Palestinian
question to the margins. We have noted how his rhetoric has intensified
in proportion to the international pressure on Israel to stop the
settlement activity and end the occupation of the Palestinian territory.

Oh, of course. And Britain was using its cries of alarm over Nazi Germany in 1941 to cover 'mass Jewish immigration' to Palestine under its auspices.

Have we moved from 1939 to 1941? Are we now seeing what the Times would have looked like had it been sufficiently politically correct back then? Who will protest?

2 Comments:

NYT covered up the Ukrainian famine engineered by Stalin tgat killed millions--and Iran is out in the open refusing to let IAEA inspectors into their military R&D nuke research facilities--all documented by the IAEA on public record; whether or not between jaunts to Japan, and Iran has been caught, despite their obfuscation, breaking the agreement to do advanced centrifuge research--but really what is holding up the Iranian bomb? it isn't the west and they ain't quakers

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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com